Fiber packed fall ahead!

Finished Fiddlehead Mittens -(I would say this is the last of their pictures but I plan on taking them to SAFF for my "Taking Pictures of Your Projects" class with Franklin Habit).  I just love them and the color work is fun to do. The liners went pretty quickly but were boring. I didn't take enough care with the size but they work. I will do better on my next pair - now to pick out the pattern!

I seem to have activities scheduled almost every weekend until the end of October! I am not sure why I am so surprised since I did all the scheduling/committing but I am. Yesterday was a whole day of basket weaving. I took a class organized by a spinning guild member (thank you Mina!). Started the process at 10:00 and stayed until it was finished at about 6:00.

The yarn with the basket is Spunky Eclectic Apr ‘13 - Seashells - oatmeal BFL spun single for Taygete, one of Rosemary Hill's lovely shawl patterns. Just started the second fiber for that pattern,

Chameleon from Oct. 2012 SCF Batt Club in BFL/Silk.

This is a picture of my finished yarn from Tour de Fleece - The big bunch is for a "Vine Yoke Sweater". It is Southern Cross Fiber Polwarth from a sale "lot 86", 26 oz.. The 4 oz on the left is Spunky Eclectic "Not so Seaworthy" Wenslydale.
 I am combining 2 colorways into one yarn to knit the yolk on the Vine Yoke sweater, Lot 86 will be the body. So far only a picture of the 2 fibers drafted together. I took the pictures on a beautiful day spinning at a B&B with some Spinning Guild friends last weekend.
both are Southern Cross Fiber, the dark green is Shetland and Silk"Night in a Forest" and the batts are Merino/Silk/Cashmere "Teeming". Will have to wait to see how the resulting yarn looks with Lot 86.
My knitting has been focused on a little baby blanket for a niece's baby, Debbie Bliss "32 Triangle Edge Blanket" .
YAY Fall!

Catch up August

It has been a busy summer with a busy Fall ahead so I had better catch up now!  I met my final TdF goal of a minimum of one hour spinning on work days and 2 hours on non work days. My pile of fiber was over ambitious as usual and still no picture of finished yarn!

My lovely niece was married last weekend - time leading up to that event was stretched thin. Pictured with her husband on the ship that was the venue. She and her husband are now on their way back to Korea where they both teach English. I wove her a light wt. Summer wrap but the only picture I managed was after warping with Silk Cloud. The weft was that cone of Xie at the right top of the picture. I beat very lightly which resulted in many "waves" in the weft but a very light weight fabric.

 Guess I don't have to feel bad I didn't get my sister's wrap even warped. Another project still in my queue!
I finished my Birthday Maroo Mitts, pattern by  Ambah O'Brian:

Also finished my Fiddlehead mitten liners. The liner mittens were a learning experience, next pair of lined mittens I will take better care to get a better fit but I do love them, finished pictures soon!

Tour de Fleece 2013

Started spinning on day one - my goal this year is at least a half hour each work day and at least an hour on non work days - and have been meeting my goal but this is my first picture. I love having before pictures of my planned fibers-to-spin and after pictures with the yarn in place of the fiber. This year I am starting with the Southern Cross Fiber (back left) that I started spinning over a year ago for a sweater - only got a partial bobbin spun then the project ended up getting pushed off my radar. The Southern Cross Fiber (back right) is a possibility for the sweater as well. Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda Teague is the sweater I want to knit from these yarns. It is knit side to side so the stripes will be vertical. I have 20 oz of the fiber I am spinning now which will be the body of the sweater - the vine yoke will be in the back right fiber (I have 8 oz of that). The 2 - 4 oz. bunches of fiber in the front left of the basket are Spunky Eclectic Club fibers and the 2 - 4 oz. bunches of fiber in the front right of the basket are Hello Yarn dyed one from a destash and one a gift. If I manage it all, that would be a total of 44oz  - possible but not likely.

Day 18 of TdF and I have yet to finish this post! I have upped my time goal to one hour on work days and 2 on non work days. So far so good. Six days to go and I should finish my sweater fiber. I have the 3 bobbins to the right now complete and a 4th about half done. Also almost the whole 4 oz of Spunky Eclectic June 2013 Club fiber "Vulpes Vulpes" on Targhee  (front left in the first picture) that I am spinning as a single on my Pocket Wheel.  Pictures soon I hope!

Just to up the fiber activity level, finally got Hannah's Wedding Wrap on the 16" Harp. My goal for that is to finish by the end of the month, very doable. I am using Shibui Silk Cloud in Fjord as the warp set at 8 epi. It is 60% mohair so very "sticky" yarn but so so soft and lovely! The warp is bamboo Xie from South West Trading Company, pictured in the cone. My plan is for a very light wt. wrap.
Happy Fibering!

Super Sweet Blogger Award!

 
I had to start out with a picture and what is sweeter than my sweet dog, Morgan. What a surprise - a blogging award for me! Thank you Carolyn (who blogs as Carolyn Knits)! Carolyn is a talented designer, knitter, and weaver . I am lucky to see her in person at our LYS, Gosh Yarn It for Spin&Knits and special events.
I am a sporadic blogger who started to document my spinning adventures but have ended up including all my fiber activities plus occasional off the track posts like Musicals as a life philosophy .
For this award I need to nominate 12 others and answer the following questions:
1.  Cookies or cake?  Um, pie actually but if I can only choose one of the two - cookies.
2.  Chocolate or vanilla? Depends but most frequently chocolate.
3.  Favorite sweet treat? Pie, pie pie!
4.  When do you get hit with cravings?  Evening - all evening!
5.  Sweet nickname? The only nickname I have ever had was Lindy - given to my by my grandfather who wasn't so familiar with the name Linda but was with Charles Lindbergh who was called Lindy.
My nominations (most do not read my blog but I enjoy theirs!)are, in no special order:
My Next 20 Years of Living
Interstitial Spaces
Thrums
Weave A Way Deb
Yarnspinners Tales
"Hold my hand" A social worker's blog
Daryl's Blog
Dr. Kathy McCoy: Living Fully in Midlife and beyond
Spin - Write - Run
hype
JennaKate Knits
Yarn Harlot










 

MDS&W 2013 or My morning with Maggie Casey!

 
I always love MDS&W ! I get to visit with cousins and extended family, enjoy the fair and then the "oooohing and ahhhing" over all our purchases after. Such a satisfying weekend! This year we had the best ever weather - sunny but cool enough to wear a wool shawl in the morning at least. I am so use to being too hot at this event. For the first time at MDS&W I took a class. It was with Maggie Casey (pictured with me above), who was so knowledgeable, which I expected but also so charming! What a great teacher, her quiet, relaxed manner while providing instruction made her class one that I not only learned a lot from but that I totally enjoyed.  I do feel that my spinning skills have expanded to include "Big and Lofty Yarns". I have my cousin Elaine to thank for the pictures with Maggie. Elaine brought her camera and suggested the picture. I am so happy she did! Samples from the class below you can see the progression. My defalt spinning is is the purple to the "spin the biggest, lofy yarn you can" in the burnt orange.

I kept my purchases down by being in class all morning on Saturday and having to drive home on Sunday, so no second day to the festival. I loved the picture used this year so got that lovely big tote, can retire my shoe box travel lazy Kate now that I have the Katie-a-go-go,  needed the fleece scrub to finish up the breed study club I have piled up in one of my piles at home, and just couldn't leave without a mug! The small bowl (love using them for spices when cooking) was just too tempting.

On the spinning front - still working on the second 6 oz. that is part of my Combo/Extreme Plying project and can't wait to practice what I learned in Maggie Casey's class. Nothing new in knitting or weaving. Fiddlehead Mittens are progressing slowly as is my Tulip Wrap - of course I have plans for what is next!

I love Retreat!

 
 My spinning guild - Spinner's Web - holds 2 spinning retreats a year. Last year I went to the fall retreat for the first time and had such a great weekend I signed right up for the Spring Retreat last weekend. Another great weekend of spinning and laughing and eating! We had perfect weather, spent Saturday afternoon outside spinning. The picture above is part of the group, the picture below - the rest. I can't wait for our fall retreat!

I managed to finish spinning the singles for my 2013 Combo/Extreme playing project. Monday night after work I plied - not an easy ply either. I held all three singles together and n plied. The result is a 9 ply. I don't think I would choose to do it again but it was interesting!
A close up of the finished fiber - not washed yet, about worsted wt.

Here is my Jumbo Woollee winder bobbin

And the three singles:

Esther Chicken

Is that cute or what! Knit from Rowan's free pattern - Esther, Ernie and Enid, Easter Chickens and handspun (mainly Southern Cross Fiber) left overs from socks.
"What do you think of my tail?"

"I am watching you!"


Here is my finished Spunky Eclectic Leno Weaving Club project too

Progress!

Last post I started with a group picture of all the yarns I would be using in my Fiddlehead mittens. I have finished one shell (still need to knit the liner mitten, yarns for liner in the picture) and I am so pleased with it! The second is started - next winter I am going to have such warm hands!
I have projects started on my 3 small looms too. The sample I had on the Hocket loom in the last post is now a wrap in progress, my Tulip Wrap, on my Harp:

On my Cricket I have the last weaving club I received from Spunky Eclectic. I have done leno before but with wool. This is linen and it looked spectacular in progess. It is now finished, wore it to spinning guild yesterday! The finished project looks great.  There will be more of these woven I am sure!

On my new Inkle loom I have a starter project. I am not sure if I will really like weaving on this loom. I think I need to check some you tube videos and see if something needs adjusting but the band itself is working out just fine.

Spinning has slowed down with all these other project going but I need to get back to my combo/extreme plying project to finish up before the April 30th deadline.
Enjoy the beautiful spring! MDS&W is coming up soon.

Spring and new beginnings

Isn't that a lovely group of yarns! All spun by me out of Southern Cross Fibre roving and batts except for the Silk Cloud by Shibui  purchased at Gosh Yarn It! That is the bright green fuzzy one in the top left corner. I will be using that, held with Southern Cross Fiber "Boogie Wonderland" 2 ply, for the liner mitten. The larger semi sold bright green three ply in the center (all the rest of the fibers are Southern Cross Fibre) "Banksia" will be the background for the fiddlesticks which will be knitted out of the remaining 5 3 ply balls. I am really excited to see this project completed! I am swatching now  - hope third swatch is a go!

I actually finished warping up for this project on my Harp but I love this picture of my sampling process on my Hockett Loom. It does 8 epi which was too wide a set for my plans, so I used the white weft (which I didn't like with the lovely Ty-Dy Cotton by Knit one Crochet Too I bought at Gosh Yarn It!) to pull the warp in to check out 10 epi with a thinner, darker color weft, Xie Bamboo also purchased at GYI! Bingo! The Xie for the weft is just a perfect color that holds the warp but shows allows the warp colors to shine through.   Love it. I am naming the project Tulip Wrap because the  colors in the Ty-Dy remind me of the tulips pictured on a postcard I got for my sister when I was visiting Tuileries Gardens in Paris. That was a wonderful trip!

Finally my newest too - an Inkle loom. I have been wanting one and the right size & price appeared in one of the used tool groups on ravelry. Can't wait to get started with it!

Back to spinning

The last 2 posts have focused on weaving but there has been spinning going on too. Above is a good picture of "Banksia" Southern Cross Fiber 60% BFL/40% Tencelfrom July 2012 Batt Club. It was a wonderful spin. Ended up with 202 yarnds of 3 ply and 202 yarns of 2 ply. The 3 ply will be the background for my Fiddlehead mittens. Knitting post soon to come!

I have been trying to spin out of my comfort zone and have 2 "big and lofty" yarns as a result. Spunky Eclectic Cotswald  "Eye of the Peacock"; 2 ply, 69 yards, 4-6 wpi Jan 2013 Club in the top left, top right is my first spin from the fleece I bought from Karen at Endless Mt. Fiber Festival in 2012. I had it processed into roving. It is lovely to spin. Bottom right is "Summer's End" Spunky Eclectic, Superwash Merino, 119 yards that I spun as part of the Extreme Plying spin along in Southern Cross Fiber on ravelry. It is what we are calling M Ply. First I spun the fiber into 2 singles - plyed them for a 2 ply then N plied. The result is a cable yarn (6 plys) and has a nice texture. Makes it hard to see how uneven the singles in the 2 play are!
Finally, my next spin. I am doing Combo SAL 2013 ravelry Spunky Club with fibers from 3 dyers on 3 different fibers - on top SE Merino/Bamboo Rayon “Dinosaur”, bottom left Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth “Kakadu”, Bottom right Hello Yarn BFL “Scorch”. My plan is to do extreme spinning with these as well - I will N ply the three singles, that will be a 9 ply!


Here are all those fibers mixed together in a better picture - actually half of the Kakadu is not there, I stripped the roving into 2 pieces and have one partially spun already! I am off to MD to visit with family this weekend - knitting will happen too!

Log Cabin Weaving

I have always loved this pattern and planning for a class gives me permission to do samples. I wanted to show the effect of different wt yarn with the same set and the look of the log cabin pattern in squares, rectangles and different color combinations.  My first was 2 small guest towels. I have Euroflax 8/2 lace weight purchased at Gosh Yarn It sale on spec. In my first trial I have it waped using a 12 dent reed on my Cricket, a little over 9 inches wide and 48 inches long. The towel on the left has the weft yarn held double, the towel on the right has the same yarn held single in the weft.

I wove another 2 towels using Euroflax, the only change was to warp double (still used the 12 dent reed). As with my first set, one has the weft woven double - the second single.No picture of those yet. I want to try a doubled Euroflax warp with a 10 dent reed too. In addition to the different feel, the Log Pattern design is more prominent when both the warp and the weft is held double.

On my Harp, I warped with worsted wt. cotton using the 8 dent reed.

The class went well, I am excited to see the results!
Here is my finished pillow out of handspun - interesting how different the sides look!

Weaving in 2013

Weaving has been taking up more of my time. I have started teaching some rigid heddle classes at Gosh Yarn It. I really enjoy using rigid heddle looms and often have both my 10 inch Cricket and my 16 inch Harp going at the same time. So, to do some catch up. The hounds tooth pattern was used for the first Weaving Class.

I did mine in worsted wt, the black is commercial the variegated is handspun using an 8 dent heddle and very light beat. It washed up to be very soft and drapy.

I had some bulky handspun again from Spunky Eclectic, "Eating Maine" Swaledale.  I wove some fabric with 3 ply Indian Warp I had purchased from the Mannings for a little seat cushion. Something soft between me and metal folding chairs!

Off the loom and washed:

The cushion is all made but no photo yet!
Finally got a picture of my spa cloth experiment  - five spa cloths each a little different:

Oh, here is the first scarf project with the yarn that came with my Cricket!:

More weaving to come!

January round up

My SnoBuddies - loved knitting them over the Christmas/New Years break. These are the three I kept. They really appealed to the doll lover in me. I had to control my urge to knit a wardrobe of hats and scarves  for them!
So, a new year and another chance to do better - not that I don't frequently try but I there are 2 times a year that I feel a stronger urge to be the person I would like to be - January and September. I have started the year moving forward with my goal of not adding to the stash. Not by not buying more yarn or fiber but by using the yarn and fiber as it comes in the door instead of letting it marinate.
First up - knit with some beautiful Silk Cloud, pictured above,  by Shibui purchased from my LYS Gosh Yarn It that went right on the needles for a Horai wrap. I knit that pattern as a scarf for my sister (pictured below) and for my largest SnoBuddy. I loved the pattern and wanted one for me. This yarn is so soft and so alive I couldn't resist.

My December Club fiber from Spunky Eclectic got spun up during a Rock Day or Stl Distaff's Day celebration and is on the needles becoming Mukluks, a great pattern to show off handspun, handpainted yarn.

Weaving next post!
2013 is going to be a great year!